List of figures vii
List of boxes viii
Preface ix
1 Understanding modernity: An outline of the main sociological perspectives 1
2 The colonial encounter in India: Towards a complex modernity 24
3 Conceptualizing development: The early modernisation model 47
4 India after independence: Community, identity, and nation 70
5 From village factions to regional parties: The democratising of caste in the field of electoral politics 93
6 Village India: From colonial idea to capitalist takeover 116
7 Public sector, LPG, and workers’ struggles: An outline of the impact of state-driven capitalism on the working class 141
8 The middle class in India: Its colonial, post-independent, and contemporary forms 164
9 The family and the household: Changing social dynamics 185
10 The economic and cultural dimensions of social exclusion in India: Definitions, history, and contemporary practices 209
Index 232
Biography
Renu Vinod teaches sociology at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, Pune, prior to which she taught sociology at Savitribai Phule Pune University. She has worked in the development sector in Delhi in organisations such as the UNDP, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, and the Centre for Civil Society. Dr. Vinod obtained her PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. She received the Erasmus Mundus’s Experts4Asia Consortium Grant for post-doctoral research at Uppsala University in 2016.
